After going to the links for "newbies" I went to this tutorial by Jennifer Apple first.
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/jennifer/photo-to-sketch.html

Here then is what I turned out in about 15 minutes.
After saving the original image to H.D. i then opened in Photoshop CS.
Make a copy,
select layer 2 (copy) then go to the Image menu and select Desaturate.
Then go to the Image menu and select Invert it.
Then go to the Filter menu and select Stylize and then select Find Edges
Then go to Image Adjust Levels and turn your selection into an outline,
my settings were 103:6.4:255.
Then go to Image menu and select Brightness/Contrast,
my settings were; Brightness=+21, and Contrast=+100, eliminating all the detail, leaving only the outline.
Then I went to the Layers pallette and selected Overlay from the pull down menu for the
background copy which we have been working on the whole time.
After which I went in and using the magic wand I selected the leaf and went to the Image menu
and selected Adjusment and Hue/Saturation making ikt more green and lighter to taste.
Then i did the same thing with the apple itself.
Selecting both the leaf and the apple i went to the Filter Menu and selected Blur>Radius 15.4>Threshold 57.2 and Quality High, Mode normal.
Flatten and save to H.D.

Unless I have left out some steps I wound up with the "poor mans" comic book image.

Hi and welcome! You certainly did finish with a great result, very CLEAN lines. Well done and thanks for taking the trouble to tell us how, I'm sure others will be keen to try your method soon.

I did a slight variation on the first part of your workflow by using Luminosity instead of Overlay, flattened the layers and adjusted Levels to suit.

Oooooh what a neat look. Have copied your methods and will be experimenting soon.

Wonderful results

And Mal, your country scene was the clincher that really decided me. Absolutely stunning.

Janet

Sigh again, i wished that i was on one of the canal boats right now, instead of here in Austin, Texas. We just love England. my neice has ascholarship to go to college in London starting this coming fall semester.
The manipulatioln makes all the difference in the world doesn't it. Nice job!

George of Texas

Sigh again, i wished that i was on one of the canal boats right now, instead of here in Austin, Texas. We just love England. my neice has ascholarship to go to college in London starting this coming fall semester.
The manipulatioln makes all the difference in the world doesn't it. Nice job!

George of Texas

Here's a couple more to make you even more wistful :wink:

All three are of the Trent and Mersey canal at the little village of Willaston, near Derby in the Midlands. And all three were done using the same variation of your original method.